Speaking to the point of how much of Prog's expenses are paid for by bands...

In January, I read about Prog's proposed unsigned bands CD and noted "that a fee is involved for inclusion on the CD." So I emailed sales exec Laura Richardson for more information.

The details which came back to me from senior sales exec Katie Taylor included the cost: £800 + VAT per track for 8mins max. (To Americans and Australians, £800 is about $1200, and standard VAT is 20%.)

I was gobsmacked. I know the claimed circulation for Prog magazine, and I know the unit cost to produce a CD in a cardboard jacket from existing audio tracks on that scale. By my calculations, even if I assumed that none of the cover price of the magazine would go towards the cost of the CD, it appeared to me that not even half the money which Prog was asking from unsigned bands would be needed to produce the CD.

I may not have been the only one who noticed this, because a little over a week later, I received a further email from Laura Richardson which offered a discounted price of £500 + VAT. (8min max track length).

^ I would imagine their disc inclusion fees would be set by advertising rates rather than CD production rates so that the £800 is possibly comparable to the cost of running an advertisment in the same mag.

I don't know much about this topic in terms of costs to be published in prog rock magazine, I do however have forefront experience with a band that paid nothing to have one song included in the various artists cd and should they want half page promoting them on a page inside the mag, it would cost them 350Euros. I am not aware of other rates charged/mentioned above. My knowleadge of the costs is limited thus I cannot corfirm nor deny.

Edited by Kati - March 04 2013 at 19:28

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So for the kind of money you are talking about (betwen £500 and £800) you can get a track on a cover-mount CD or a (say) full-page adertisement in the same magazine that has a circulation of 10-20,000. Or you can have 1,000 of your own (glass-pressed) CDs manufactured in jewel case with an 8-page full-colour artwork. Of course it makes sense to have something to promote if you are going to pay to promote and since this particular cover-mount is concerning unsigned bands then the band will be paying for that too.

As Sonia said, a signed band paid nothing to have a track on the cover-mount, yet unsigned bands pay to be included - as I recall Metal Hammer has a similar policy, as do many gig promoters (headline act gets a guarantee, signed support gets a percentage, unsigned support pays to play).

(Not wanting to defend Future publishing too much, but not just to be contrary either): The purpose of a cover-mount is to sell the magazine, it's a freebie enticement to the punters, the benefit to the bands on the CD is secondary. A CD of unsigned bands is not going to fulfil that purpose, only a limited number of people are going to be enticed into buying the magazine for a CD of unsigned unknown bands, therefore the fee is understandable - a 100% mark-up on that is more difficult to explain but Future publishing is a business not a public service.

One thing I wasn't aware of until I saw a recording contract (in this case from a PHD imprint label) is that the band was expected to donate tracks for compilation albums royalty free as that is considered to be part of the promotion costs of the album.

My band was once on another mag's CD, it cost us about £320. I think it was worth it for being on sale in train stations all over the UK, and selling 20,000 copies in a month. (works out around 2p per copy)

The magazine's been running now for four years - maybe a year from now they'll publish their own book of highlights as a fifth anniversary thing. Then we can have it without the adverts, without the interview-to-promote-latest-tour, just put all the best stuff together, maybe 500 pages will do?

I've been picking up the mag on and off since it came out....I wish they would spend more time on the obscure/less well known bands and do a feature on them once in a while. It seems like they focus on just the big names most of the time.

^ I would imagine their disc inclusion fees would be set by advertising rates rather than CD production rates so that the £800 is possibly comparable to the cost of running an advertisment in the same mag.

Considering one of my old bands paid £1000 to record and manufacture a single, which sold about 3 copies, then £800 for inclusion on a CD which goes to several thousand people of your target audience (i.e.prog fans) then that doesn't sound too bad a deal to me.

Pain of Salvation (Swedish),....etc. Prog Magazine creates the illusion that there is a "thriving" Prog scene with

bands like TOUCHSTONE, THE REASONING, etc., even though these bands rarely play gigs outside of the UK

(and even in the UK they often play 200-300 seat shows).

Of course the same can be said for PA......We create the "illusion" that bands like ANGLAGARD are more popular than they actually are (958 ratings for Hybris ?)...when in fact these bands can rarely afford to play gigs,

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